Carlsbad Caverns



Sunset in Texas.

  Our first experience in New Mexico was the battery dying in our car. I had the headlights on to set up the tent in the dark at Brantley State park and Ivy had plugged in to blow up the air mattress. A short meteor shower later we were in the dark with a half inflated air mattress and no dinner. Que sara sara I suppose. We cracked a couple brewskies, sat on the trunk and watched the stars for a while before retiring around seven. The next morning three passerbyers told us "no" when we asked for a jump before we finally woke up the camp host to help us out. I think that confirmed my suspicion that people here suck, except for Tom. Thanks Tom and I'm sorry we woke you up :)

NM has been having the same drought as Texas so there were piles of dead prickly pear cactus which was saddening. There had recently been a fire also, so a lot of the "trees" had black trunks. Can you find Ivy in this picture?

Ranger Ivers

The Carlsbad Caverns were absolutely mammoth. The best way I can describe them for you is, if the ceilings were 200 feet high at O'Hare airport in Chicago and they melted. Truly a sight to behold. 

 The rocks are actually formed by water dripping from the ceilings. The calcium forms the white rock. It looks like icing on a cake.

 This picture to the left is one of the last pictures of my sunglasses. I leaned my head back to take a picture and they fell down into the caverns... Sorry I lost the sunglasses you gave me Gabe.

They actually brought in a guy who does lighting for Broadway to light the caverns. So unlike the lava beds we went to earlier in the trip, we didn't need head lamps. The light bulbs were all white but the bacteria in the caverns shown through in beautiful colors.

There are actually hundreds of miles of other caverns in the area but the National Parks have chosen to not make them accessible to the public to preserve them for studies. They believe that they can learn about life on other planets by studying these cavers. In this one they have park rangers go through regularly with tweezers and remove lint off the rocks that is left by people walking through the caverns to try to maintain the beauty of the rocks. The caverns have a bizarre serenity about them. They aren't beautiful in the traditional sense like the leaves changing or flowers blooming but they are beautiful all the same.

Speaking of which check out how pretty that stalactite is!

We did the self-guided audio tour which was really informative plus we could go at our own pace. For those of you who don't know us personally our pace is something of a rushed linger so it's better for us not to be committed to a guide. If you do want the guided tour calling ahead is advised. They were sold out at 930 am and there really were not many people there. You've been warned.

I guess we were right to skip Roswell. There were aliens right outside of the caverns!

Not the first time we've been that close to a bear on this trip. This one is slightly less terrifying though. Ivy was a little shook up still so it was time to get rollin'.

After the Rockies and the Cascades, the Guadeloupe mountain range wasn't so impressive. After Carlsbad we headed to Tucson for Thanksgiving with my sister.